Friday morning and Spitting Pig were on the road travelling to Newport, to the company Liberata UK to cook the wonderful Southern Slow Roast menu for their 150 employees as a celebration for completing a contract on time. The serve time was 2pm so this meant a very early start, 4.30am infact to allow sufficient travel time, set up and then cooked the shoulder of Pork, Brisket of Beef & Lamb Quarter. The beef and lamb had been marinated over night, providing a fantastic aroma as they slowly cooked in the Hog Roast machine. Gradually the staff at Liberata started to gather around the gazebo as we laid out the plates & cutlery, cooked the potato wedges, vegetarian lasagne and set out the quiche & salad. There was still 1.5 hrs before serve time but still the crowd grew? Was it the smell of the trio of meats cooking or where we to be eclipsed by something else! Well yes in fact – the solar eclipse!
Several people had purchased ‘solar eclipse sunglasses’ so they could see the moon pass before the sun. We followed a simpler approach, place our salad colander in front of a piece of paper! Amazing dozens of tiny eclipse shaped images spread across the paper! Anyway back to business – serve time of 2 pm saw a string of staff all lining up, eager to try the pulled pork, tender beef and lightly curried lamb, potato wedges, salad & crunchy coleslaw. As this was going to be a rapid serve time we had set out our 2nd gazebo as a serving area allowing more space and more importantly shelter if the heavens opened! Luckily the weather turned out to be warm and sunny. There was enough for 2nd & even the odd 3rd helping, the day had been a resounding success. After a long day it was time for us to clear up, pack up and head home! Check out Liberata’s website by clicking here!